


Fall Into My Arms (Or Shatter On Your Own)

by JinxedForever



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Angela "Mercy" Ziegler is an Angel, Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempt at Humor, Awkward Romance, Best Friends, Blood and Injury, Brother Feels, Brotherhood, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Cuddling & Snuggling, Cute Ending, Dubious Science, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Repressed, Falling In Love, Family Feels, Flashbacks, Freedom, Friendship/Love, Gay, Gay Male Character, Gay Panic, Genji Shimada is a Little Shit, Getting Together, Guilt, Hanzo Shimada has Issues, Hanzo Shimada is Bad at Feelings, Happy Ending, Healing, Heavy Angst, Human Jesse McCree, Idiots in Love, Injury, Injury Recovery, Jesse McCree & Genji Shimada Are Best Friends, Kindred Spirits, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Major Character Injury, Medical Inaccuracies, Mer!Genji - Freeform, Mer!Hanzo, MerMay, MerMay 2019, Merman Genji Shimada, Merman Hanzo Shimada, Noodle Dragons, Permanent Injury, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protectiveness, Redemption, Romance, Scars, Spirits, Suicidal Thoughts, Survivor Guilt, Sweet Jesse McCree, Touch-Starved, Trauma, Whump, mermaid au, probably
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 07:52:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19044286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JinxedForever/pseuds/JinxedForever
Summary: Jesse had seen far too much violence in his life, and it never seemed to let up. Humans were bad enough to their own kind, but what they did to Mers out in depthless water where no one could hear them scream, where the blood and broken scales would be swept away by powerful currents to leave no trace of the maimed creature, was a whole other type of cruelty. Every inch of their bodies was priceless, and, if Jesse had learned anything in his thirty-seven years of life, greed knew no bounds where humans were concerned. He'd already hauled one Mer from shallow waves years ago, now, he guessed it was time to do it again.ORJesse finds Mer!Hanzo half-dead on the shore and can't help but fall head over heels for him.This is my VERY last minute entry for MerMay. I made it in the nick of time! I do hope you enjoy!





	Fall Into My Arms (Or Shatter On Your Own)

**Author's Note:**

> I struggled with this beast of a story for like three weeks, but I was determined to get the first chapter done and posted before MerMay was over and I did it! This should be a 2-3 chapter fic, if I don't get absolutely carried away, so be on the lookout for future chapters if you enjoyed this one! This is only my second Overwatch fanfic, so I'm still working on understanding McHanzo's complicated dynamic, but I'm trying. Kudos are always appreciated! Comments totally make my day so don't be afraid to let me know what you think! Thank you so much for reading!
> 
> I feel like this song fits this chapter pretty well, feel free to give it a listen if you want:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78UesDrHkQE&list=PLxSf3eBAijSKQ28YHJxUkng246AgqXId7&index=24&t=0s

Jesse trudged along the narrow switchbacks carved down the cliff face supporting Watchpoint Gibraltar, skidding every now and then on the rocky path thanks to the worn soles of his oldest pair of boots. His back teeth worried the end of an expensive cigar, forgetting to savor the flavor altogether as he worked his jaw in frustration and released plumes of smoke into the air out of the corner of his mouth. He often went for walks after debriefings to clear his head, and the one he’d just come from had been particularly grueling, leaving him with the insatiable need to escape for a few minutes.

He left hoping a walk along the beach, decrepit and scarred as it was, would bring him some sense of calm, loosen the tightness in his chest a bit. It’d been his fault the mission tanked, he knew that, but it still stung to be so harshly reminded of it, and by his commanding officer in a room full of colleagues, no less. Jesse huffed and kicked a loose pebble with a little more force than strictly necessary, nearly stumbling over the side of the trial in the process, and he quickly braced his flesh hand against the cliff face to steady himself. No use getting himself killed now.

Jesse carefully continued down the path to the rocky shore below, easing his way over a fallen, rotting log to avoid drenching his boots in the small stream running between him and the beach, and found himself jumping down just a few feet from the stormy ocean’s edge. He took a deep breath, snuffing out and pocketing his cigar for later, and whistled the air back out of his lungs, easing some of the tension from his shoulders. Thin whispers of lingering smoke crept from his lips and he watched it curl into the wind, reveling in the simple pleasure of being alone.

It wasn’t a picturesque beach, there was no question there. The shore was comprised primarily of various rocks and pebbles, smoothed by repetitive friction but still jagged and marred in parts as a result of harsh weather - remnants of lighting strikes here and there - and debris. A few ships had ran aground nearby at some point, littering this part of the beach with planks of shattered wood and rusting nails as well as scraps of torn fabric and bits of machinery Jesse could only hope weren’t destroyed Omnics.

The boulder-like sections of rock protruding from the cliffs were brittle and sharp, crumbling in large pieces to the shore. The cliff face itself was scarred with gaping maws of darkness, caves that - if ventured into at the wrong time - would lead to a quick and painful death. The weather was harsh and unforgiving; storm clouds darkened the sky, the waves to Jesse’s right foaming and crashing violently only to vaporize into a heady mist that stuck to his skin.

Even still, it was a small mercy, a relief from the stuffy watchpoint steeped in old memories Jesse carried alone. He’d only been back for a couple of weeks, but everything had changed so much while he was gone - running for years, the authorities on his heels even as he worked to become a better man - and it was throwing him off balance. He’d spent so long refusing himself thoughts of Reyes, and now, everywhere he turned, the man was there, and he couldn’t bear to ignore it much longer. It was nice to see the familiar faces though, even with the new wrinkles reminding him how much time he’d missed.

Jesse languidly made his way across the shore, darting out of range of the frothy water as it teased his toes and dancing around tide pools gathered in deep crevices in rock formations perched along the waterfront. Thunder rumbled in the distance, settling something in his bones. He knelt down to observe a crab scuttling into one of the shallower pools of water, his shadow darkening the liquid enough that the small crustacean practically disappeared when it breached the surface.

Jesse sighed, straightening again with a painful, cracking  _pop_  in his kneecap. He rolled his eyes and worried the inside of his cheek, thumbing over the six shooter holstered at his hip. He braced his foot against the sharp incline of rock beside the tide pool and set his hands on the ledge above him, hoisting himself up and over the top of the boulder. After vaulting himself to the other side, Jesse placed a hand on the smoothed rock behind him and skidded down the opposite side, wobbling as his boots crunched against the pebbled shore. He brushed a few flecks of seaweed and bits of rock off his palm, letting his eyes wander over the stretch of land before him. He hadn’t ever explored this part of the beach before.

He scanned the landscape, which didn’t stretch too far before another rock formation cut off his line of sight, and something caught his eye. A sharp glint flickered at the edge of the ocean, jutting out from behind a shallow rock plateau that stretched inland and hid a few feet of the shore beyond it. Jesse figured it was probably just a piece of glass washed ashore, but he figured he might as well check and see. He fumbled his way over the flat, slippery surface of the rock on his hands and knees, his jeans catching once or twice on small bumps in the stone.

As he got closer, he noticed a cord of thick rope leading from somewhere on the other side of the rock into the water. It was sturdy enough to keep a small boat in place, and small, uneven portions of it were stained red. He could see the fraying end of it bobbing in the waves just a few feet from him. It looked like something had chewed right through it.

A lilting voice suddenly echoed in his mind, whispering to him, desperate and soft,  _“Help us…”_

Jesse startled, slipping a few inches on the rock and earning himself a small, jagged slice on his palm. He cursed under his breath, wiping a couple droplets of blood on his jeans, and thought to himself that he might finally be going crazy. Even still, he’d seen too many hard-to-explain things in his life to shrug off the disembodied cry for help. There was a soft pull in his limbs, urging him over the other side of the rock formation, and he let it lead him, curious enough to let his guard down. He hauled himself over the ledge of the boulder and froze, fingers grinding into the stone so roughly he belatedly heard it crack under the pressure of his prosthetic.

There, lying prone and a little too-still, was a merman. Jesse’s eyes widened, his gaze roaming over a brilliant azure tail, shimmering blue scales sloping over thick muscle, shifting, ruffling ever-so-slightly in the cold breeze. Delicate gold fins as thin as butterfly wings lapped listlessly against it in the shallow, undulating water, shimmering in the filtered rays of the sun. The tail led up to a man’s torso, blending into flesh-colored skin just below were a navel would be if he had one. Scales mimicking those on his tail wove up parts of his torso and poked out of his flesh in small patches in what looked like a desperate attempt to protect softer skin against attacks. A tattoo peeked out from beneath the scales clustered on his left arm and shoulder, the design curling up over his pec, but Jesse couldn’t make out what it was with so much of it covered. Fine gills fluttered against his neck, the skin surrounding them red and irritated. Long, silky black hair fanned around the merman’s face and drifted aimlessly in the water, a halo of ink.

The closer Jesse got - his feet carrying him forward on their own as he stared in wonder - the more he realized how much worse the situation was than he’d originally thought. The water surrounding the merman was a muddled reddish-pink, and his complexion was too pale to be healthy, even for a mer. Just below the water’s gritty surface, Jesse could see the end of the merman’s tail, the place where it connected to his lower fins, brutally, carelessly speared by a harpoon’s tip. The current pulled at the thick rope connected to the weapon, yanking the mer’s tail along with it and forcing the bottom tips of the harpoon’s head to dig into his scales. Blood bloomed from the injury in inconsistent flurries, darkening the water even further.

Not a single one of the mer’s fins had survived whatever had attacked him, the soft, thin mesh that held the structural spines together torn and crumpled, blasted full of holes and ruined. His tail was practically shredded, gashes ranging from shallow and long to deep and precise carved into the shining scales, blood sluggishly seeping from each wound. Jesse could see a couple of heavy-duty metal fishing hooks embedded into the meaty flesh. Scales were flaking and peeling off in places, leaving only raw, exposed muscle open to the air, draining blood into the pebbled shore.

His torso and rib cage were caved in awkwardly, suggesting broken ribs, but Jesse wouldn’t be able to confirm that without feeling around the area. One of the mer’s shoulders was dislocated, wrenched from its socket and bruised badly. He was missing the majority of his fingernails. The mer was clearly struggling to breathe, gills working overtime in the air he was unaccustomed to, and his chest quivered with each shallow inhale. There was harsh bruising wrapped around his neck, crumpling parts of his gills inward. He appeared to be unconscious, flopped gracelessly onto his back and left for dead.

Jesse’s keen eyes roamed the stretch of land around them, canvassing the area, and absentmindedly checked to make sure his gun was loaded before stepping forward towards the merman. There didn’t seem to be anything or anyone else around; it looked like the mer had made a clean escape from whoever or whatever had hurt him. Jesse warily knelt down beside him, eyes roaming his form. The last time he’d approached an injured mer, cautious but unguarded, he’d nearly lost an ear, and he wasn’t keen on reliving the excruciating pain of their toxins.

He leaned forward and reached a hand out, watching for any signs of consciousness and finding none, brushing the curtain of hair away from the mer’s hidden face. His chest tightened as the merman’s stern features came into view, streaked with blood and twisted in agony even in unconsciousness. There was a scattering of brilliant blue scales embedded into his temple, curving up in a crescent shape to cover his right eyebrow and forehead. They were cracked, parts of them chipping off and falling into his long lashes and gathering along his cheekbone. His mouth was bloodied, long, sharp teeth glinting from beneath bruised and split lips. Bits of rope fiber were scattered throughout the smears of blood around his mouth, and upon closer inspection, Jesse found bundles of them wedged between the merman’s fangs. Must have chewed his way through the rope attached to his tail.

Jesse paused, a surge of hateful anger swelling in his chest, and was so distracted by it he almost didn’t notice when deep, rich brown eyes snapped open to stare up at him. He blinked, squawked in surprise, and fumbled to hold his hands up in a placating gesture, shifting out of range of the mer’s razor-sharp teeth. The merman twitched - seized, really - and tried to scramble away from Jesse, digging mangled, bruised fingers into the rocks shifting below him to heave himself away from the gunslinger.

Jesse’s heart squeezed painfully at the look in the mer’s frightened eyes, and he immediately started babbling placatingly, praying the mer understood English. It had been a small mercy that Genji had understood them when they’d found him, but there was no telling if this mer would be the same.

“Hey now, hey, it’s alright, I don’t wanna hurt you, I want to help,” Jesse crooned softly, forcing himself to sit on his haunches even though he wanted nothing more than to comfort the mer, to hold him still so he couldn’t injure himself further. “Please stop moving around like that, you’re hurt pretty bad, and you’re only making it worse.”

The merman froze with a sharp, high-pitched whine, collapsing heavily against the shore, and heaved a few shaky breaths, glaring at the cowboy with piercing, pain-hazed eyes.

“There you go, good. It seems like you can understand me. Well, I hope, at least,” Jesse mumbled to himself, inching closer to the injured mer, hands carefully held out in front of him; no use giving him the wrong idea. “I need to get you back up to the base so Ange can take a look at you, but I want to try to stop some of the bleeding first, okay?”

The merman eyed him warily for a worryingly long moment before nodding shakily, pressing his forehead to the ground as his eyelids drooped. His tail twitched, and Jesse watched with concern as a new flurry of blood slid down its length. Mers were known to be more physically resilient than most humans, but if Jesse didn’t get him medical attention soon, he wasn’t sure of the mer’s chance of survival.

Jesse nodded in return, acknowledging the granted permission, and crawled closer, wincing as rocks dug into his kneecaps. He slowly unwound the serape from his shoulders and held it out in front of him in case the mer wanted to examine it. It was a shame to bloody the heavy wool, but Jesse had washed plenty of stains out of it over the years, and it was already red, so he was sure it’d turn out alright and besides, it was the best material he had on him to try and stop the bleeding. Genji was endlessly curious and suspicious of items he didn’t recognize, always demanding to analyze whatever new trinket Jesse presented him with before touching it, so Jesse figured it might put the mer at ease to look it over.

The mer didn’t react much, tilting his head slightly at the offer, but stayed quiet and still. He was probably in too much pain to care. Jesse frowned, a little surprised but not dissuaded, and placed the serape on the pebbled shore between them, leaning over the mer’s torso to examine which wounds he needed to attend to first. Injuries on the softer flesh of his chest were more of a concern than the ones littering his tail; they’d be able to cut deeper and do more damage to internal organs without the scales getting in the way.

The mer sprang up with a gutteral snarl before Jesse could even blink, his few remaining fingernails elongating into razor-sharp claws, shimmering a deep black in the light and laced with that pesky toxin Jesse was unfortunately all too familiar with. Jesse tutted and dodged the sloppy slice the mer made for his neck, catching his thin wrist in the palm of his flesh hand. The mer flinched violently, immediately trying to wriggle out of Jesse’s strong grip, shredded tail shuddering and twitching like it was trying to move but couldn’t.

Jesse hissed sympathetically as the mer’s complexion paled further and his features scrunched up in agony, a soft whimper escaping his throat unbidden as tears tracked down the his face, bleeding into his hair. The mer’s bad arm spasmed and flicked in the wrong direction, and Jesse winced, reaching over to press it down. The merman continued his attempts to wrench himself out of Jesse’s grasp, his already-shallow breathing picking up into a frenzy, and Jesse tried to catch his eye as he spoke softly.

“Hey, hey, listen, you have to calm down. I know you’re hurting, and scared, and confused, but I’m trying to help you. Please don’t bite my face off. I’ve helped one of your kind before, and I know you lot are taught to distrust us humans, but I genuinely just want to keep you from bleeding out on this beach, so cool it, alright?”

The mer stilled, blinking up at him owlishly. Gold flecks swam in his irises, shimmering like the fine golden fins on his tail in the sunlight. Jesse promptly let go of his arm, and the mer’s hand flopped back onto his torso with a wet  _smack_ , his claws swiftly retracting. He shifted, protectively wrapping his good arm around himself, cradling his ribs and upper stomach. There was still a strong note of suspicion in his gaze, and Jesse fidgeted, knowing he wouldn’t be able to gain the mer’s trust immediately.

Still, he couldn’t help but try, the words tumbling from his mouth as his hands moved, mechanically drifting over the mer’s body to assess the damage. “I know that some of us humans do monstrous things to your kind, and I know it’s more than likely that it was humans who did this to you, but not all of us are bad,” Jesse said softly, and the mer’s expression relaxed by just the tiniest bit.

The mer blinked slowly, eyes flickering over Jesse’s form, surveying him lazily.

“I’d like to think I’m a good man,” Jesse added quietly, thumbing over a laceration just above where the mer’s scales met flesh. “Or, at least, I try to be.”

The mer huffed lightly, struggling to keep his eyes open, and his gills fluttered uselessly in the air. Jesse almost wished he was unconscious, if only to save him from having to stomach the pain. It was likely he’d had to swim like this to end up here alone, and Jesse couldn’t imagine how excruciating and difficult that must have been. He wondered if the mer was aiming to end up here specifically, if he’d known someone might pass by to help him, or if he’d just swam as far away from his attackers as he could before getting too weak to continue and passing out here. Even with a tail this mangled, poachers wouldn’t have left him for dead; just a few mermaid scales sold for hundreds, maybe even thousands considering the rich coloring of this mer, and they wouldn’t have wasted the opportunity if they’d had it.

Jesse quickly came to the conclusion that he didn’t have the time, equipment, or skills to do anything about the injuries here on the beach, as much as that frustrated him, so he proceeded to lay his serape out on the shore and gingerly reach for the mer, hoping he wasn’t going to lose a finger or three to his sharp incisors. As his flesh hand slipped beneath the mer’s neck, attempting to get a grip on his broad shoulders without jostling him too much, Jesse heard a light  _mmrrp_ , not unlike the quiet, lazy protests the field cat he’d had as a child had made when Jesse tried to rouse her from a peaceful slumber in a patch of sunshine. He cocked his head, confused, and paused.

A glowing snout about as wide as his thumbnail poked up over the far side of the mer’s neck. “Uh, um,” Jesse stammered intelligently, blatantly staring as the long, curling body of a translucent, scaled spirit wriggled up and onto the mer’s chest, its claws seeming to sink through his skin as if it wasn’t quite aligned with the mortal plane, snout twitching in Jesse’s general direction. Jesse belatedly noticed a second pair of gleaming eyes tucked into the mer’s dark, slick hair staring up at him.

“Spirits. Okay. Um, hello,” Jesse muttered awkwardly, willing his pulse to calm as he took in the sight of the shimmering, opalescent beings. Spirits like these, even small, seemingly harmless ones, could tear him apart in seconds if they wanted to. Jesse was seriously beginning to doubt his luck. The spirit on the mer’s chest made a small chirping noise and its tail twitched from side to side agitatedly, a small wisp of near-transparent smoke curling from its nostril.

Jesse swallowed thickly, holding out his free hand, the prosthetic, and watched warily as the more adventurous spirit opened its maw and clamped down on his pointer finger. The grip was loose, barely enough to even register as touch to Jesse’s synthetic nerves, and Jesse wondered if it was playing with him, accepting him, or if it truly didn’t have the strength to hurt him right now. Now that he looked a little closer, he realized the spirit appeared downright drained, its body only half-present, a few patches along its tail and back faded into thin air and its eyes struggling to blink. It made a small noise of distress, tugging at Jesse’s finger weakly.

Jesse assumed they must be bonded to the mer, considering the way they kept close to his skin, slipping into it like silk as they moved. The identical spirit taking shelter in the mer’s hair, the more timid of the two, twisted through the mer’s shoulder and reappeared out of his stomach a moment later, brushing up against its twin. Their tails flicked and entwined anxiously, sending soft, shimmering gold particles fluttering through the air that Jesse almost believed he was imagining, they were so faint. The second spirit poked and nudged at Jesse’s palm warily for a moment before straightening and pacing frantically along the mer’s torso, chirping and whining softly. The first spirit released Jesse’s finger only to slither up his hand, curling around his wrist. Its energy pulsed softly against Jesse’s touch sensors.

 _Help us,_  twin voices whispered, and Jesse got his answer as to who was calling him earlier.

Jesse startled back into motion, having forgotten for a brief moment what he was doing as the spirits redirected his attention, and continued trying to get the injured mer into his arms. He had grown worryingly still as Jesse’d acquainted himself with the spirits, and Jesse chided himself internally for letting himself get sidetracked. He gently squeezed his arms underneath the mer and lifted him, grunting from the effort even with his prosthetic advantage. He nestled the merman into his serape as gently as possible, pressing the thick fabric into the few wounds it would reach. The mer shifted uncomfortably at his touch, face twitching and creasing, and his fingers shuddered against his chest. His eyes were closed, but Jesse could see his pupils darting around frantically beneath the lids. Not fully unconscious, then, but probably nowhere close to being aware.

The spirits fled beneath the mer’s skin as Jesse rolled him into his arms, doing his best to keep from jostling him too much. The mer curled into the warmth of his breast, head lolling towards him to rest right above Jesse’s heart. Jesse hoped the rhythm would be a comfort. He stood, hoisting the heavy body in his arms as best as he could, wobbling a little on his heels as he struggled to find his balance with the extra weight. There was a terrifying second where he thought he was going to go crashing back down as his bad knee threatened to give out, but he managed to stay upright. Mers, especially fully-grown adult ones like the man in his arms, were nearly twice the size of an average human, their tails long and powerful, wound tight with well-developed muscle, and his weight mirrored the difference.

Jesse skirted the boulders he’d climbed over on his way across the shore as best he could - knowing if he slipped into a tidal pool and twisted his ankle, it would be the end for the mer - hurrying along the slick pebbles back to where he remembered the bottom of the trail being. He stumbled and swayed all along the way, calling upon his practiced drunken swagger to save them both, and was forced to pause a few times to resituate the mer on account of the slippery, wet scales his serape didn’t quite cover, but they made it across the beach without any major missteps. The mer appeared to have calmed slightly by the time they reached the base of the cliff, although Jesse couldn’t tell you why, his breathing a little more even and his lidded eyes having stilled.

Not glancing up at the tremendous climb Jesse was about to have to do with someone twice his size and weight pressed against his chest proved to be a good plan, seeing as he could barely force himself to follow the path two feet in front of him.

_You fought off four men and walked a quarter mile to cover after loosing an arm, you can make it up this cliff to save someone’s life._

Jesse grunted and heaved a breath, forcing his feet to move. He vaguely heard a few rocks skittering down the path behind him and really hoped he hadn’t just whacked the mer’s tail into the cliff face. About three switchbacks from the top, Jesse’s boot missed the narrow trail, slipping off the side and sending him keeling towards the drop. With a loud curse, he threw all of his and the mer’s body weight to the other side, turning his back to the cliff and cupping the mer’s head. They harshly smacked against the rocks, knocking the wind right out of Jesse’s lungs, but they stayed on solid ground, and Jesse’s knees didn’t do him in, so he took it as a win.

He let himself breathe for just a moment before continuing up the path, checking quickly to make sure the mer was still out. He was, long, silken hair spilling between Jesse’s fingers as they moved. A few of the scales jutting out of his forehead had begun to recede, leaving small patches of pink skin in their wake. His lashes were thick and dark, brushing against pale cheeks and glinting with water droplets that hadn’t evaporated yet. Jesse got himself so wrapped up in the mer’s mesmerizing features he didn’t even register the last couple minutes it took to get to the top of the cliff, his feet moving on autopilot as they got to the wider part of the trail. The adrenaline coursing through him probably helped. A trickle of blood streaming down his prosthetic coldly reminded him of the situation, and he hurried to find Angela.

He stumbled, light-headed and trembling from over-exertion, into Angela’s medical bay, his arms full of half-dead, stunningly handsome - hush, Jesse - merman. The doctor glanced up from the daunting stack of paperwork strewn across her desk, and Jesse gave her a cheeky, shit-eating grin as her eyes bugged behind the thin metal frames of her reading glasses. The shock was fleeting, immediately replaced by her cool, professional grace as she rose from her chair and pointed him in the direction of an exam table, ushering him to set the mer down.

He carefully laid the man out on the table, peeling his serape away from the mer’s pale, bloodied body, and Angela stepped up beside him, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. “How do you even find these people?” She asked incredulously, fingers flitting over the mer’s form.

Jesse shrugged, bunching up his bloodied serape and tossing it into one of the plush waiting chairs sitting beside one of the multiple cots in the room. “Ask Lady Luck; she seems to have it in for me,” he drawled, shuffling back up beside Angela to watch over her shoulder.

“Why even bother replying if you’re just going to say nonsense?” Angela tutted, a small smile playing over her lips. It quickly shifted into a concerned frown as she ran her hands over the mer’s shredded tail. “What happened?”

“I just found him washed up on the beach like this. There was no one around,” Jesse replied, crossing his arms over his chest. He’d have to go back and see if there were any signs of a struggle where he’d found the mer at some point, but that wasn’t the priority right now.

Angela hummed thoughtfully, pushing past him to get to the shelves to his right, plucking a few medical instruments from a variety of the built-in drawers. “Understood. For now, all that matters is that we get him patched up. I’d say he doesn’t have long, even though he’s a mer. Jesse, would you please get Mei down here, and go to the bathroom and wet a few towels, we don’t want him drying out.”

“Yes Ma’am,” he replied, fumbling for his phone as he jogged over to the bathroom.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me ‘ma’am’ Jesse? It makes me sound old!” Angela snapped after him, huffing something under her breath in Swedish followed by a polite request to Athena he couldn’t make out.

Jesse chuckled to himself despite the grave situation, sending off a concise message to Mei and moving to gather as many towels as he could find strewn about. Once he had a good bundle, he tossed them in the tub and turned on the faucet, taking a moment to check on Genji’s mission status as the water ran cold. He was due back that night after a two week long mission. Looks like it had been a success, but Genji habitually took a few days to himself after long missions like that to meditate and recover regardless of the outcome. Unfortunately, a good majority of that time was spent in the med bay with Angela, so there was really no way to keep him from seeing the mer before he’d be in a good enough mood for the news. Jesse’s fingers hovered indecisively over the keyboard, debating whether or not to give him a head’s up, but he decided to leave it for when he could find him in person.

Once the towels were fully soaked, Jesse carried the sopping mess of cloth out into the main infirmary room, immediately beginning to cover the mer’s dry, flaking tail with them as best he could without aggravating his wounds. The mer’s scales immediately regained some color, looking a bit more solid and less like flaking dough. Angela promptly shoved a heap of gauze into his hands once they were free, pointing him to the worst of the bleeding. Some of the lacerations were still open and weeping while other, smaller ones had clotted of their own accord. The doctor muttered something about the inability to give the mer a blood transfusion, her fingers deftly popping his shoulder back into its socket with a soft thud. It seemed she’d already applied a few butterfly bandages on the smaller cuts along his arms, face, and stomach, and readied the nanotech to begin stitching the flesh of his torso back together. Jesse heard the soft hum of the machine powering up, a blue, projected mesh scanning down the length of the mer’s chest.

Mei came bustling in not a moment later, glasses slightly askew on her button nose, and froze completely at the sight of the mer. “Wh- wha…” she stammered, eyes growing to a simply ridiculous size. A couple of loose papers slipped out of her fingers and swished across the floor.

Angela twisted slightly in her direction, her gaze tracking the pale laser that beamed down to knit the mer’s wounds closed. “Mei, I need you to synthesize the adhesive we have been working on.”

“The one for injured sea life?” Mei asked, inching closer cautiously. “But, we haven’t done any testing yet!”

Angela paused briefly, her fingers half-stuffed into the mer’s tail, pushing gauze in one of the many wounds, the muscles in her shoulders tensing as she bit out, “the last time I treated a mer, I had to remove more than half of his body. If there’s a chance I can do better by this man, even if it is deemed ‘unethical’, I’m going to try. Even if you’re not with me.”

Mei slouched slightly, rocking back onto her heels. “Of course, Dr. Zeigler,” she murmured, “I never meant to-”

“Please hurry, Mei,” Angela replied, her tone softer, apologetic but firm.

Mei jerked into motion, running over to their workstation as she murmured figures to herself under her breath. Angela repositioned the tech, anxiously glancing at the harpoon head still jutting out from where the mer’s ankles would be were he human. Jesse hovered awkwardly, feeling horribly out of place and completely useless in comparison to the brilliant minds beside him.

Angela exhaled sharply as the smell of cauterized flesh filled the med bay, glancing up at him offhandedly. “Jesse, you look exhausted. Go take a shower and you can lay down in one of the empty beds when you come back.”

“Are you sure? I-”

“I’m sure. Let us do our jobs.” She turned back to the mer as a dismissal, tilting the man’s chin up to get a better look at the bruising around his neck.

Jesse frowned deeply and turned away, his skin itching slightly. She was right, he was of no help in this situation and he was beyond exhausted. He made his way back into the bathroom, slipping out of his clothes and stepping into the shower, letting the warm water glide over sore muscles and wash away the stress of the past few hours - past few days. Steam rose to surround him, wrapping him into his own little world. The quiet murmurs of the doctor and scientist faded into the harsh  _pitter-pat_  of the water on the tiles. He combed his fingers through his hair, tugging out a few knots and gently dragging his nails over his scalp. His thoughts began to wander.

_Genji was curled up tightly in his lap, fingers feverishly wound into his worn flannel, slumbering fitfully against his chest. Jesse thumbed at the drying, salty tear tracks carved down pale, scarred cheeks, rage frothing in his heart at the thought of those reckless teenage boys running their ship right over the bright young man in his arms, cackling all the way, drinks in hand, completely indifferent to the misery they were inflicting on another person._

_Genji’s prosthetic hips and legs were a downright miracle, but they were also an enormous burden to him. They weighed him down tremendously, even though they were the lightest, most streamlined models available. Angela had done everything she could, but it simply wasn’t… enough. He couldn’t swim; he’d tried. Jesse’d fished him, half-drowned, out of the watchpoint’s pool on multiple occasions._

_Genji twitched awake, gasping in an atmosphere he wasn’t made to live in, palms tightly clasped to his synthetic thighs. Bright green-brown eyes burrowed into Jesse’s, his voice tight with sobs as he demanded, “what’s the point, Jesse? What’s the point of all of this? I’m an abomination; this is wrong, I’m not supposed to be here, to be alive, to be mutilated like this. I was born as a creature of the sea and I can’t even swim!”_

_His voice broke and he burst into tears, pressing his face into Jesse’s shoulder._

_“You’re you, Genji. That’s all you need to be,” Jesse murmured, wrapping his arms around the young man’s slight frame, running his hand through short, buzzed hair._

_Genji was asleep again within minutes. The cycle repeated all night. Jesse didn’t sleep much those days._

Jesse heaved a sigh, pulling himself from the hazy memory, his heart heavy and fists clenched tightly at his sides. He really hoped Angela would be able to salvage more of this mer. Genji had progressed a lot since then, healed a lot since then, but Jesse still vividly remembered dragging him out of the ocean one night, waves crashing and frothing in vehement fury at the injustice brought upon their own, sweat and sand caked uncomfortably on his skin, using all his waning strength to haul his friend away from his death. Genji had cursed him out for over an hour, until his voice was a thready, pitchy thing, weakly dragging his prosthetics through the pebbles as Jesse yanked him back to his room.

He shook his head, eliciting a few sharp little  _smacks_  of water hitting the plastic shower curtain. Angela wouldn’t let that happen again. She couldn’t. Loosing so much of Genji had shaken her, diverted her focus into preventing that kind of thing from ever happening again. She wouldn’t let another sparrow’s wings be clipped.

Jesse stepped out of the shower, fishing around for a towel he hadn’t taken from the room. He pawed around on the top shelf of a cabinet he couldn’t see, his fingers mercifully catching on a corner of fabric. Why there was a shelf so high even he had trouble reaching it, at over six feet, he couldn’t say, but he was happy to find a towel all the same. He dried himself off and dressed in spare infirmary clothes - a pair of gray sweatpants and a light blue t-shirt, both soft to the touch - and dumped his old clothes in a heap with his serape as he pushed out of the bathroom.

He slowly meandered over to the mer’s exam table, eyeing the work Angela and Mei had done while he was in the shower. He must have been in there for quite a while, probably over half an hour, and the time gap showed. All of the lacerations on the mer’s torso, arms, and face were sealed meticulously by the nanotech, and Jesse could see a shiny lather covering the bruised sections of skin. Mei and Angela were both bent over the mer’s long tail, focused on applying something that smelled a little like plums and looked thick and gelatinous, nimble fingers gently smearing it over and pressing it into the gashes in his scales. Jesse thumbed over one of the sealed wounds that looked dry already, wondering at their genius.

“It won’t… it won’t look like it did before. It will scar badly, but it will keep him from loosing his tail if it works like it should,” Angela addressed him matter-of-factly, still focused on the task at hand.

Jesse hummed appreciatively, lightly running his fingers down one of the fine fins lacing down the tail’s sides. “Would it help these?” He asked quietly, stomach twisting as the soft lattice wilted and crumbled at his touch. He pulled his hand away.

“I’m afraid not,” Mei murmured sadly, “this adhesive was designed for blubber and thick skin, not something the same consistency as butterfly wings. It would cake and harden, and would probably ruin them even more.”

Jesse swallowed and nodded, eying the harpoon still jutting out of the end of the mer’s tail. “Do you need assistance with that?”

“Probably,” Angela replied, straightening her back and wiping her hands on a washcloth. “We’ve managed to get most of the bleeding under control, and we’re almost done patching up these parts of the tail, but considering how much blood he must have lost before you found him and on the way up here, it’s not wise for us to remove it right now. We’ll have to shave it down and seal it in place temporarily until he heals up a bit.”

Jesse grimaced, clicking his tongue and shifting his weight.  “You don’t have a way of keeping him under though, right? That’s going to be a shitty thing to wake up to.”

“Better than dying,” she replied brusquely, waving him over.

“Fair,” he conceded, following her lead as she directed him in assisting her to line up the machine close to where the harpoon head was speared through the mer’s scales.

“Alright. Mei, please step back once you’re done sealing those last two tears. Jesse, once I turn on the machine, I’d like you to hold it still while it cuts through the harpoon. It can get a little wobbly sometimes regardless of the calibration, and we don’t want to risk it hitting him. It’s not exactly designed for something this precise,” Angela instructed, taping a wide, waterproof patch over one of the larger sealed wounds as an extra measure.

“Got it,” Mei murmured under her breath, brushing the back of her hand over her forehead to wipe away the sweat beading there.

In the meantime, Jesse and Angela worked to position the laser cutter just right. Mei backed off after just a couple minutes, and Angela lightly taped down pieces of the mer’s tail fin before she turned the machine on. Jesse diligently held it in place as it worked, keeping it from jostling. It made a clean slice through the heavy metal without issue, and they repositioned it to cut across the bottom side once it’d cooled, flipping the mer onto his stomach to get a better angle.

Doing this revealed a couple more wounds that needed tending to, although they were minor in the overall scheme of things, considering the curve of the mer’s tail gave them decent access to the underside of it when he was on his back. They’d wanted to move him as little as possible, Mei explained when he asked. They repeated the process again with the other side of the harpoon. Once it was cut down to a small metal rod, barely peeking out of the mer’s scales, Angela temporarily sealed it in place and they were done with the major damage control.

“Alright, we have to get him into water now, he’s drying up even with the towels. The adhesive should be waterproof and dries quickly, so it should be okay. Jesse, would you mind putting him in the tank?”

“Sure thing.”

Jesse carefully turned the mer back over and wound his arms under the heavy body, lifting him against his chest and slowly walking over to the specially-designed tank Angela had made for Genji before she’d finished his prosthetics. He still used it sometimes, just to float in the water for a few minutes, the fluid filtered in a way that kept it from interfering with his implants.

The glass door to the chamber clicked open, hissing as it depressurized, and Jesse settled the mer as comfortably as possible at the bottom of the empty tube before stepping out of it and closing the door tightly so it would seal correctly. Angela stepped up next to him, inputting a long line of code into the holographic panel to Jesse’s right side. The tank slowly began to fill, clear water lapping up around the mer’s body in soft waves. As it rose, the mer gently drifted into an upright position, effortlessly floating in the liquid. The tank rose high enough for his tail to fully straighten with some extra room above and below him.

The mer’s long hair drifted lazily around his head, inky strands curling around his sharp jaw as the current gently brushed through them. His face was the most peaceful Jesse had seen it since finding him washed up on shore, his muscles relaxing as the caked blood began to soften and peel away from his skin to be filtered out of the tank. His tail softly swayed back and forth, stimulating the healing process and sending the little, thin fins running down his hips and tail aflutter. Even as mangled and bruised as he was, he was still beautiful.

As Angela turned away to clean up her work station, Jesse watched twin spirits shyly peek out from the mer’s toned belly, eyeing their surroundings warily. He might have noticed a hint of curiosity in one of their eye’s. Jesse waved at them, offering them a kind smile, and one of them fully apparated, loosely twisting in the water around the mer, glowing a soft, azure blue. The other joined it after a moment’s hesitation, the both of them swimming in spirals in the enclosed tank. Their energy pulsed in the soft, dim lighting of the capsule, and the mer’s bruises began to fade right before Jesse’s eyes as he watched, slack-jawed, in awe.

Angela gave a small squeak of surprise as she turned and saw them, muttering something to Athena about Genji as Mei bade them both goodnight with the promise that she’d be back in a few hours to check and see how things were going. Angela seemed a little less shocked by the spirits than Jesse would have expected, so he assumed she had an inkling about them via something she’d found out through or about Genji. He wondered if Genji had spirits of his own. If every mer had them.

Jesse watched at Angela out of the corner of his eye, noting the small, pleased smile teasing her lips, and decided she seemed to be in a good enough mood for him to ask her if he could stay and keep an eye on the mer. She raised an eyebrow curiously at that, but conceded and told him it was alright with her, seeing as there was no one else in need of medical attention at that moment, but that he’d have to leave if she ended up needing the cot, which he fully understood.

He dragged one of the cots on wheels over next to the mer’s tank, settling himself on the springy mattress and tugging the sheets over his body. He nabbed a blanket from one of the shelves above him too. He always ran a little cold; something about growing up in New Mexico, he reckoned. He was determined to be there when the mer opened his eyes, hoping it might keep him from freaking out too much and hurting himself like he did on the beach. Jesse thought to himself that he wouldn’t be opposed to getting some shut-eye in the meantime. He blearily watched the rhythmic pulsing of soft blue light coming from the mer’s tank until he fell into a shallow, dreamless sleep.

He was awoken sometime later by the shattering of glass.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed reading this! I really tried to make it as polished as possible, but it is very long. Also, just wanna be super clear and just say it here that Genji and Jesse aren't and haven't been romantically involved in this story, they're just really close friends. :) I'd love to hear what you think about this chapter and predictions for what might happen as the story continues if you feel up to writing me a comment! Kudos are always very much appreciated too. How do you think Genji will respond? How about Hanzo? What is their story? Does Jesse have a chance with the pretty merman? Will Hanzo keep his tail? I'm curious to hear what you think will happen! :D
> 
> If you feel inspired to create fanart for this fic, please do send it to me! I'd love to see it! :D <3 My Tumblr is @jinxed-forever, my Instagram is @jinxed_forever, and my email is sequoiagartnerway@gmail.com. You can also come hang out too, if you'd like. I'm not the best at socializing, but I try! ^-^
> 
> See you next chapter!


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